1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus that forms an image onto a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an image forming apparatus that carries out recording by discharging ink droplets from a recording head to a recording medium, there is a case where when ink droplets are discharged, satellite droplets may be produced behind ink droplets (main droplets) to be actually used for the recording, or ink mist may be produced when an ink droplets land on the recording medium and then bouncing occurs. Hereinafter, the satellite droplets, the ink mist, or such, will be generally referred to as “ink mist or such”.
In the image forming apparatus, dummy discharge of ink may be carried out for the purpose of preventing nozzle surfaces of the recording head from being dried, or so. The dummy discharge may produce ink mist or such.
Ink mist or such may cause such a problem of dirtying the inside of the image forming apparatus, adhering to an operation mechanism part, and causing a malfunction in an image forming process of the image forming apparatus.
Further, in the image forming apparatus, a linear encoder and an encoder sensor may be provided as a position detection part that detects a position of the recording head with respect to the recording medium. In such a case, when ink mist or such adheres to the linear encoder or the encoder sensor, position detection performance of the position detection part may be degraded, or malfunction may occur.
It is noted that the position detection part including the linear encoder and the encoder sensor is such that, for example, scale information provided on the linear encoder that is fixed is optically or magnetically read by the encoder sensor that moves. Thus, it is possible to detect the position of the encoder sensor that moves with respect to the linear encoder that is fixed.
Further, when ink mist or such adheres to the nozzle surfaces of the recording head, mixing of inks of different colors, a phenomenon of ink being not discharged, or so may occur, and result in failure in printing.
In order to solve the problems, such a configuration has been proposed that dummy discharge reception parts, disposed on both sides in main scan directions of a carriage, and a drainage tank are connected together, and ink mist or such is led to the drainage tank by means of an air stream (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2006-76155).
Further, a suction hole is provided on the same surface of the nozzle surfaces of the recording head, a flexible duct that changes in its shape as a carriage moves and the suction hole are connected together, an air stream is created by a suction fan, and the air stream is used to collect ink mist or such (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2005-205766).